Photoshop goes 3D with Creative Cloud upgrade

Jackie Dove |
Jan. 17, 2014

Adobe is cranking up the buzz around Photoshop CC, its flagship imaging app, with the debut of new 3D printing capabilities. Photoshop artists can now easily refine, preview, prepare, and print 3D designs to a 3D printer right from Photoshop CC.

With the new version of Photoshop (14.2, if anyone's counting), artists can design, produce, and finish 3D content such as product prototypes, art objects, toys, jewelry, and animations with true-to-scale 3D previews, one-click printing, and the ability to share interactive 3D models with others.

In addition, Photoshop offers an open architecture for 3D printer support, allowing users to write their own 3D printer profiles in XML, and Lauta said Adobe will be adding support for more printer profiles in the future.

Photoshop CC users can also share 3D content in their Behance portfolios via Sketchfab, a Web service for publishing, sharing, and embedding real-time interactive 3D models online. This allows users to experience 3D content with a browser rather than viewing static snapshots.

Photoshop 14.2Apart from 3D, everyone's eyes are focused on what else is new in Photoshop CC, which increasingly seems to do everything but take the picture for you.

This update features two new and powerful components — Perspective Warp and Linked Smart Objects. Perspective Warp allows image editors to correct complex perspective distortion while keeping the original perspective intact, change the vantage point from which an image was shot, convert a telephoto shot into a wide angle shot (or the vice versa), and composite images with different vanishing points.

Linked Smart Objects — references to files on a local system or network — offer another way to reduce file size and to repurpose objects to improve collaboration for creative teams. You can use a linked smart object in multiple documents, and when it changes, every instance also changes.

In this version of Photoshop CC, the 3D editing environment gets an overhaul, including simplified 3D interaction. Clickable areas are highlighted on hover, and areas in the on-canvas 3D cage are now larger, making it easier to interact with 3D elements.

Updates to Photoshop typically feature both major and minor elements, and this version is also accompanied by an assortment of improvements, including smart sharpen via GPU, improved history states for text editing and character and paragraph styles, improved negative number support in curves adjustments, and upgraded font transformations.

Illustrator is now enhanced with Live Corners that let you modify corner appearance; a revamped Pencil tool that promises to be easier to use than the not always cozy Pen tool; easier reshaping of path segments with the Pen tool; and checkbox-enabled responsive scalable vector graphics (SVG). InDesign now offers simplified hyperlink creation, styling, and verification, the ability to acquire and sync fonts automatically, and enhanced ePub interactivity. Muse gets a new Library panel, social widgets, scroll effects options, and a full screen slideshow. Typekit now offers access to more than 800 desktop fonts for Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator which you can access directly within your open application.